Su­per­cars

First leg of three in the Pirtek En­duro Cup. At the Sandown track in Mel­bourne for the 48th time ( no venue has hosted more Su­per­cars rounds) and the 46th run­ning of the Sandown en­durance race which started as a six- hour af­fair in 1964. Grab­bing pole here not al­ways a ticket to suc­cess as only twice in the last 30 en­durance races at the track has the pole- sit­ter — Lown­des/ Mur­phy in 1996 and Whin­cup/ Dum­brell in 2014. Jamie Whin­cup and Paul Dum­brell are to­gether again ( they also won in 2013). Not a happy hunt­ing ground for Ki­wis. The last New Zealan­der to win was Inky Tul­loch ( as co- driver for Stuart Kostera ( 2011). Be­fore that Greg Mur­phy ( with Craig Lown­des ( 1996 and 1997) and Jim Richards with Mark Skaife ( 1989) and Tony Longhurst ( 1975). Raced over 161 laps of the 3.1km cir­cuit, the race takes around 3h 30m at an av­er­age speed of about 150km/ h. The bat­tle at the top of leader­board re­mains tight with Scott McLaugh­lin ( who teams with Alex Pre­mat here) lead­ing Whin­cup by 12 points with Fabian Coulthard ( with Tony D’Al­berto) 95 points back. Richie Stan­away joins Cam Wa­ters for the 500 while Chris Pither is with Dale Wood to en­sure a strong Kiwi pres­ence.